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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap. Z.1-\o% 
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UNITED ^TAT*!^ OP AMEEIOA. 




MASSACHUSETTS 



IN THE 



American Revolution 



BY / 

AINSWORTH R. SPOFFORD 



AN ESSAY READ BEFORE THE 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SOCIETY OF THE SONS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 

APRIL lO, 1895 




CITY OF WASHINGTON 

PRINTED FOR THE SOCIETY 

1895 



PRESS OF W. F. ROBERTS, 
WASHINGTON, D. C. 







MASSACHUSETTS 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 



HONORED by the invitation to address 
you upon the part borne by Massachu- 
setts in the War of Independence, I deem it 
not inappropriate to preface my remarks by 
a rapid sketch of some of the conditions 
prevailing in all the colonies in the years 
immediately preceding the epoch of the 
American Revolution. 

If we look through that most interesting 
historical period — the last quarter of the 
eighteenth century — we shall find in Amer- 
ica an abundance of intellectual activity. 
By a long series of events and experiences, 
in the colonies and in the mother country, 



6 MASSACHUSETTS IN THE 

the minds of men had been prepared for 
independence. Many of the emigrants to 
America were exiles from political or eccle- 
siastical tyranny, whose decendants in- 
herited those principles of strong self- 
reliance and hatred of arbitrary power 
which bore fruit in the revolutionary epoch. 
The isolation of the colonies, in an age 
before steam navigation had brought Amer- 
ica near to Europe, contributed to weaken 
the influence of foreign ideas and associa- 
tions, and to develop the power of domestic 
ones. By its own inherent energies, no 
less than by maternal unkindness, the child 
America v/as being gradually weaned from 
England. The democracy of the town- 
meeting, the union of neighborhoods against 
the Indians, the broad freedom of a virgin 
land, with its illimitable forests, the or- 
ganized colonial legislatures, the birth of the 
newspaper, the wide diffusion of education, 
the liberty of the press — all conspired with 
their remoteness from the mother coun- 
try to sow the seeds of independence. 
It is a notable fact, in our estimate of the 
complex influences which wrought out this 
great result, that the growing intellectual 
life of the colonies had gradually diminished 



AMERICAN REVOLUTION 7 

the once overshadowing prevalence of Brit- 
ish books and British thought in America. 
From the first printing press, in 1639, at 
Cambridge, Massachusetts, to the end of 
the first year of the Revolution, in 177% 
there were printed in the colonies more 
than 8,000 books and pamphlets. Out of 
this number, surprisingly few were of trans- 
Atlantic origin. Allowing for cases of doubt- 
ful authorship, and counting as American 
only the works actually written by resi- 
dents in the colonies, 1 have found that 
about 7,350 of the total publications of the 
American press before the Revolution were 
of American origin, and only about 650 of 
foreign origin, or less than one in thirteen. 
This too, leaves out of account the writings 
of Americans actually published in London 
during that-long period of pre-revolutionary 
activity. These would swell the lists of 
purely American books to a very consider- 
able extent. In view of so pregnant a fact of 
literary history, the widely diffused notion 
that American ideas and their expression 
were all formed upon foreign standards, and 
that the colonies had no native literature^ 
must be relinquished. 
, It would, indeed, be unreasonable to ex- 



8 MASSACHUSETTS IN THE 

pect from a people engrossed in the ques- 
tions and agitated by the passions of a 
revolution, literary works which could claim 
admiration as literature. Works of fancy 
and imagination are rarely born amid the 
rude campaign, or the shock of battle, and 
great political controversies afford no place 
for the refinements of speech. The principal 
writers of the period under review were 
engaged, not in creating a literature, but in 
founding a nation. The serious problems, 
political and social, which confronted them, 
not only controlled their choice of subjects, 
but to a great degree influenced their style. 
While the outbreak and progress of the 
revolution incontestably led to a great ex- 
pansion of the human mind, that movement 
was felt rather in the field and the council, 
than in the closet or the schools. The war 
against England, which required for its 
successful prosecution great powers and 
distinguished talents, happily appeared to 
create and to foster both. Whenever the 
occasion arose, there were always found 
men worthy of the occasion. Those who 
had manifested no special commanding 
faculties in the piping times of peace, were 
found, under the rousing stimulus of war. 



AMERICAN REVOLUTION 9 

to possess a genius for action and for 
utterance which did signal service to their 
country's cause. Fired with the love of 
freedom, and animated by a lofty patriot- 
ism, men wrote with an energy and persua- 
sive force hitherto unexampled in colonial 
literature. A certain magnanimity took 
the place of those narrow and sectional 
feelings which had too much prevailed 
before the Revolution. The people of the 
different colonies had known but little of 
each other, and unreasonable jealousies and 
discords were the fruit of this want of inter- 
course. The raising of the first Continental 
army was a great step toward union. Men 
organized to fight for a common cause, 
with a common leader, and against a com- 
mon foe, came to look upon one another as 
brethren. But more powerful, doubtless, 
than this sentiment born of military union, 
was the feeling of the necessity of political 
union, urged upon the people with consum- 
mate power by writers and speakers who 
represented the best intellects and the 
ripest thought of the time. Indeed, in the 
contests of the American Revolution, as of 
so many other revolutions, there is little 
room to doubt that the pen was mightier 
than the sword. 



10 MASSACHUSETTS IN THE 

Great was the intellectual stimulus which 
the agitation of these momentous events 
contributed to the life of the people. They 
were not the listless consumers of a foreign 
literature, born in the dull age of the Han- 
overian dynasty, but the Americans began 
to be independent of British thought, as of 
British institutions. The best writing of 
the time, rude but strong, had in it the free 
breath of the woods, and the flavor of the 
soil. The pens which championed the 
cause of the people against the monarchy 
were at their best when they forgot to 
quote. The energies of a hitherto divided 
and scattered people, now fast becoming 
nationalized, poured themselves forth in 
vigorous protests and appeals. The news- 
papers became energized with a new life, 
and the conspicuous idea of that life was 
the principle of self-government. The press 
became prolific in pamphlets, and instead of 
that great redundancy of sermons which 
characterized the printed literature of the 
century before the Revolution, there were 
more and more of political essays and discus- 
sions. The people read eagerly what was 
written earnestly, and published cheaply. 
More than 100,000 copies of Thomas Paine's 



AMERICAN REVOLUTION II 

''Common Sense" were sold, at eighteen 
pence a copy, a prodigious circulation for 
those days, and a most notable one for any 
political pamphlet now. The addresses and 
state papers of the Continental Congress 
were scattered in broadsides and news- 
paper "extras," and their signal ability in 
stating with convincing power the cause of 
colonial liberty amply justified the lofty 
eulogium of Chatham and the encomiums- 
of Burke. 

That the effect of the Revolution was to 
infuse new life and vigor into the national 
literature we have the testimony of Dr. 
Benjamin Rush, who wrote, soon after the 
close of the Revolutionary War, — '' From a 
strict attention to the state of mind in this 
country, before the year 1774, and at the 
present time, 1 am satisfied that the ratio of 
intellect is twenty to one, and of knowledge 
as one hundred to one in these States, com- 
pared with what they were before the 
American Revolution." 

In the political history of every people, it 
is of great interest to trace the origin of 
those safeguards to the liberties of the citi- 
zen which find expression in free nations in 
their fundamental law. Massachusetts has 



12 MASSACHUSETTS IN THE 

the distinction of liaving been the first 
American Colony to enact a Bill o( Rights, 
or a fundaniental statute or constitution to 
guarantee certain liberties, privileges, and 
immunities to all the people. This remark- 
able document, styled " the Body of Liber- 
ties,'' was enacted by the General Court (as 
the Massachusetts legislature was alwa>'s 
called) in 1041. It ante-dated, by nearly 
half a century, the famous " Bill of Rights/' 
adopted b\' the Parliament of England in 
ioSq, and went beyond that instrument in 
its assertions of popular freedom. It was 
not so much a supplement to English Law 
as a substitute for it. Massachusetts, only 
twenty years after its first settlement at 
Plymouth, established a code distinguished 
for its justice and liberality, and far beyond 
what in that age had been attained in the 
polity of any nation. It sets out by declar- 
ing that no man's life, liberty, or property 
should be endangered but by virtue of an 
express law. It declares that no mono- 
polies should be granted ; that every man 
should have the right to take part in town 
meetings ; that all men should have free 
right of removal ; that no judicial proceed- 
ing should be vitiated by technical errors or 



AMERICAN REVOLUTION 1 3 

mistakes ; that in all actions at law, the 
parties should have the right of jury trial, 
and of challenge ; that all court records 
should be open ; that representatives to the 
legislature should be chosen by the votes 
oi all free-men ; that every town should 
make its own local laws and regulations; 
and that the select men, or governing body 
of every town, should be chosen by a vote 
of the people. This free constitution, 
carried as it was, into practical effect in 
every town, planted seeds which bore 
abundant fruit in the great after-struggle 
for American liberty. 

The patriotic devotion which inspired all 
the American Colonies in the inception, the 
progress, and the final triumph oi the War 
of Independence was nowhere more con- 
spicuous than in Massachusetts. To the 
intellectual resources of her sons were con- 
joined a spirit, a courage, and a zeal for 
liberty, which made an indelible impression 
upon the whole country, and still shine 
upon the page of history. It was upon 
Massachusetts soil that the first blood of 
the Revolution was shed ; and it was from 
her patriotic sons that the earliest protests 
against arbitrary power were heard, although 



14 MASSACHUSETTS IN THE 

in other colonies the agitation for absolute 
independence from Great Britain was quite 
as early as in Massachusetts. The three 
leading capital cities of the country were 
successively captured and held by the British 
army. Boston was the first of these; but 
the stubborn resistance of the Massachu- 
setts soldiery, and the splendid generalship 
of Washington, forced the evacuation of 
Boston after a much briefer occupation by 
the British than befell her sister cities, New 
York and Philadelphia. All the military 
events which occurred on Massachusetts 
soil — important and ever memorable as they 
were — took place during the first year of 
the Revolution. Other regions witnessed 
more decisive battles, and continued for a 
much longer tiipe, the immediate theatre 
of war; but Massachusetts soldiers marched 
or sailed to every colony, and bore their 
part in every important battle, from Bunker 
Hill down to Yorktown. Out of twenty- 
one Major-Generals chosen to command 
the American armies, during the eight 
years struggle, six were of Massachusetts, 
or nearly one-third of the whole number; 
and ten out of the forty-nine Brigadier-Gen- 
erals appointed belonged to the same gallant 



AMERICAN REVOLUTION 1 5 

and patriotic State. And in the rank and 
file of the Continental army, out of an 
aggregate of 37,363 men enlisted in 1775, 
16,449 (o'' nearly one-half) were Massachu- 
setts men. This is not remarkable, in view 
of the fact that the first military preparations 
had to be made in the colony first occupied 
and attacked by British soldiery. But at 
later periods of the war, the soldiers of the 
Old Bay State were found as vigorously 
fighting for their compatriots in other col- 
onies, as for their own homes and firesides. 
Thus, in 1777, long after the evacuation of 
Massachusetts by the enemy, we find that 
12,591, out of 68,720 troops enlisted, were 
from Massachusetts; being a larger number 
than any other state contributed. The 
same lead was maintained throughout the 
war, except in 1779 and 1780, when Vir- 
ginia's soldiers and military actually in the 
field exceeded those of Massachusetts by a 
few hundred, while in 1782 (which wit- 
nessed the virtual close of the struggle), 
Massachusetts put 4,423 men in the field, 
out of a total of 18,006 in the Continental 
Army, Virginia having only 2,204 ^t the 
same period. 
As the first military resistance to British 



1 6 MASSACHUSETTS IN THE 

power occurred in Massachusetts, so^ the 
first moral and political revolt against Brit- 
ish oppression had its birth in the same 
colony. Some years before the odious 
Stamp Act, with the enactment and repeal 
of which the continent resounded, came 
the earliest opposition to arbitrary power. 
In 1 76 1, attempts were made to enforce 
collection of a tax of six pence a gallon on 
molasses, by a summary process styled 
** Writs of assistance." This writ invested 
the revenue officers of the Crown with 
plenary powers of search and seizure, and 
became most odious to the people. At a 
judicial hearing, James Otis argued against 
this oppression with all the resources of his 
great and powerful mind, 'i am deter- 
mined, to my dying day," said he, ''to 
oppose all such instruments of slavery on 
the one hand, and villainy on the other, as 
this Writ of assistance is. 1 argue in favor of 
British liberties, against a power, the exer- 
cise of which cost one King of England his 
head, and another his throne. Reason and 
the Constitution are both against this writ. 
No act of Parliament can establish such a 
writ; for every act against the Constitution 
is void." 



AMERICAN REVOLUTION 



17 



This great speech of James Otis, said John 
Adams, ''breathed into this nation the 
breath of life. With a depth of research, a 
profusion of legal authorities, a prophetic 
glance of his eyes into futurity, and a rapid 
torrent of impetuous eloquence, he hurried 
away all before him. American indepen- 
dence was then and there born." 

So far John Adams. But neither the 
logic nor the eloquence of Otis availed to 
turn aside the purpose of a government 
bent upon levying taxes upon its colonies, 
by whatever means. Writs of assistance 
were issued whenever the King's revenue 
officers asked, and no redress was found in 
a subservient judiciary against the wrongs 
perpetrated in the name of the law. The 
obsequious Judge Hutchinson (afterward the 
royal Governor of Massachusetts), though a 
native of the province, took sides with 
power against his countrymen. 

Then followed the Stamp Act of 1765, 
which laid a direct tax upon all the business 
transactions of the people, and made all 
violations of it subject to Admiralty juris- 
diction, without the right of trial by a jury. 
This odious measure was received with 
consternation, mingled with indignant pro- 



1 8 MASSACHUSETTS IN THE 

tests, in every colony. It was denounced 
as a tyrannous imposition, levying taxation 
without representation, for the colonies were 
not permitted either to tax themselves by 
their own legislative bodies, which existed 
in every province, nor to send representa- 
tives to the parliament of England. It 
deprived British subjects in the colonies of 
rights heretofore always enjoyed, and struck 
down at one blow all the muniments of 
British liberty. 

It was this act, followed the same year by 
the mutiny act, which authorized the billet- 
ing of soldiers in private houses, which 
raised a storm in the colonies, re-echoed 
by the liberals in Parliament, and led to the 
repeal of the Stamp Act. It did more; it 
produced the first movement ever made 
looking to a union of all the colonies in 
self defense. In June, 1765, James Otis pro- 
posed, and the legislature of Massachusetts 
voted, to invite a meeting of committees 
from the legislatures of the several colonies, 
''to consult together on the difficulties to 
which they were reduced by the operation 
of the late acts of Parliament." This move- 
ment, originated, to her immortal honor, by 
Massachusetts, and earnestly seconded by 



AMERICAN REVOLUTION 1 9 

all the southern colonies, brought about the 
first American Congress, which assembled 
at New York in October, 1765. 

It is very noticeable, that during the ten 
years ensuing, while the public mind of 
the American colonies was slowly ripening 
toward independence, all classes of opinion 
still rested firm in the conviction that 
they were British subjects. As British sub- 
jects, the Tories declared their obligation 
to submit to King and Parliament; and, as 
British subjects, the patriots protested their 
rights to all the liberties of Englishmen. 
None were as yet found who held to a 
separation from the mother country, even 
in idea. Still, the persistent injustice of 
England awakened more and keener resent- 
ment as time rolled on. The repeal of the 
Stamp Act soon gave place to new imposi- 
tions. Heavy duties were laid upon glass, 
paints, and paper, and a tax of three pence 
a pound on all tea imported into the colo- 
nies. Massachusetts soon met the crisis by 
resolving to use none of the articles tainted 
by an unconstitutional tax. '*We will form 
one universal combination," said the men of 
Boston, *'to eat nothing, drink nothing, and 
wear nothing imported from Great Britain." 



20 MASSACHUSETTS IN THE 

To those who marvel at the excited re- 
sistance made by these colonists to a trifling 
tea tax of six cents a pound (a rate of duty 
on that article often exceeded in both 
countries since), it must be suggested that 
the recusant people were not protesting 
against the tax, but against the manner of 
its imposition. The measure of Massachu- 
setts patriotism was not the three-penny 
standard of the tax — it was the absolute 
unconstitutionality of any tax at all. They 
acted after the principle laid down in that 
immortal verse of Shakespeare: 

"Rightly to be great, 
Is not to stir without great argument; 
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw, 
When Honor's at the stake." 

The honor of every British subject in 
America was bound up in the right of their 
duly constituted legislative assemblies to 
levy all the taxes, whether for the Crown, 
or for the colonists themselves. The wives 
and daughters of Massachusetts resolved to 
drink no more tea; and the papers of the 
day declared that ''whoever shall purchase 
and use that article will drink political 
damnation to themselves." 

The spirit of freedom was too rife in 



AMERICAN REVOLUTION 2 1 

colonial assemblages to be long tolerated. 
The legislatures of New York and Massachu- 
setts were dissolved by the royal governors, 
followed by the proroguing or dispersion 
of those of other colonies. Massachusetts 
quickly acted: the Boston committee called 
on the towns to send delegates to a con- 
vention in Faneuil Hall. Ninety-six towns, 
nearly every one in the province, were 
represented, and in September, 1768, re- 
quested the governor to convene the 
constitutional assembly of the colony. He 
refused to receive their petition, declared 
that they had committed treason, and 
warned them to disperse, or they should be 
made to repent of their rashness. The 
convention disregarded the insulting mes- 
sage, issued their protest against taxation 
by Parliament, and against a standing army, 
renewed their petition to the King for 
redress of grievances, and adjourned after a 
six days' session. It was a great moral 
victory, felt throughout the colonies, and 
even as far as the court of St. James. 

It was not in the nature of things that 
peace and quiet should long continue 
between an oppressed and exasperated 
people, and a hireling soldiery quartered 



22 MASSACHUSETTS IN THE 

among them. The Boston Massacre of 1770 
soon followed, and the streets of an Ameri- 
can city were for the first time stained with 
blood, wantonly shed by the armed minions 
of power. After the excitement of this 
event, the forbearance of the citizens was 
once more evinced when the acquittal of 
the soldiers took place, on insufficient evi- 
dence. 

But the coming revolution grew. Gover- 
nor Hutchinson had again refused to call the 
assembly of the province together, and 
haughtily denounced the town meetings 
which assembled to discuss public matters. 
By denying this right, he directly impeached 
the institution of town governments, one of 
the oldest and most sacred rights of New 
England, firmly entrenched in the customs 
and the democratic sympathies of the people. 

At length, in November, 1772, Samuel 
Adams proposed that great patriotic meas- 
ure, a ''Committee of Correspondence," of 
twenty-one members, to state the rights of 
the Colonists, and to communicate regularly 
with every town in Massachusetts by let- 
ters of advice and mutual counsel. Thus 
was founded that political co-operation 
which led by steady growth, and extension 



AMERICAN REVOLUTION 2} 

through other colonies, to the union of 
scattered efforts and energies into a firm 
confederacy of patriotic men, dedicated to 
one common aim. 

Immediately, the answers of the towns of 
Massachusetts to the masterly statement of 
grievances sent out from the central com- 
mittee came pouring into Boston. The 
original manuscripts of these unique and 
stirring memorials of the heroic age in 
American history formed one of the most 
precious portions of the historian Bancroft's 
library. Here are a few brief examples of 
the free spirit that breathes through these 
documents of a hundred and twenty years 
ago. 

The people of Fitchburg declared that 
''Liberty is a most precious gift of God our 
Creator to all mankind, and is of such a 
nature that no person or community can 
justly part with it." The town of Leicester 
thus spoke: ''We prize our liberty so highly, 
that we think it our duty to risk our lives 
and fortunes in defense thereof." Marl- 
borough put on record its sentiment that 
"death is more eligible than slavery." 
Shirley's inhabitants declared — "we will not 
sit down easy until our rights and liberties 



24 MASSACHUSETTS IN THE 

are restored. " Gloucester resolved— ' 'when 
the civil rulers betray their trust, and abuse 
the power the people have reposed in them, 
they forfeit the submission of the subjects; 
and to oppose and resist in that case is not 
to resist an ordinance of Heaven." And 
there came from Brooklyn, Connecticut, 
town meeting, presided over by Colonel 
Israel Putnam, these stirring words: "Those 
rights and privileges which were obtained 
by our worthy ancestors at a great sum, we 
will maintain inviolate, even at the risk of 
our lives and fortunes, in spite of the united 
combination of earth and hell." 

Samuel Adams, among whose papers these 
relics of the times that tried men's souls 
were preserved, wrote of them — ''By means 
of a brisk correspondence among the several 
towns in this province, they have wonder- 
fully animated and enlightened each other. 
* * * An empire is rising in America; and 
Britain, by her multiplied oppressions, is 
accelerating that independency which she 
dreads." The high-minded and eloquent 
Joseph Warren wrote, "The mistress we 
serve is Liberty, and it is better to die than 
not to obtain her." 

Then came those days of stress and storm, 



AMERICAN REVOLUTION 25 

of sore trial and conflict, whose history is 
familiar to you all; the days of the shutting 
up of the harbors of Massachusetts, by the 
Boston Port Bill; of the outlawry of Hancock 
and Adams; of the threatened dragging of 
Massachusetts patriots to England for trial; 
of the sending out of regiment after regiment 
of British troops to coerce obedience; of the 
suffering and want of Boston in its belea- 
guered state; of the sympathy and solid gifts 
of the other colonies, — Connecticut sending 
her a thousand sheep, all New England 
wheat, corn, and cattle, and Fairfax County, 
Va., a liberal gift of money, Geo. Washing- 
ton heading the subscription with fifty 
pounds; of the meeting of the first Conti- 
nental Congress at Philadelphia, in 1774; of 
the arming in the country districts through- 
out Massachusetts, at the urgent instance of 
the Committee of Safety; of the seizure by 
British troops of colonial arms and powder; 
of the first bloody skirmish of the Revolution 
at Lexington and Concord; of the excitement 
and exasperation which spread like wildfire 
through the country ; of the resolve of 
Massachusetts to raise immediately fourteen 
thousand men; of the sanguinary Bunker 
Hill battle, lost by the Americans after that 



26 MASSACHUSETTS IN THE 

brave and stubborn fight, inflicting upon the 
British losses which more than doubled their 
own; of the military measures of Congress, 
and its election of General Washington as 
Commander-in-Chief; of his long and pa- 
tient struggle with obstacles of every kind, 
want of discipline, want of money, want of 
powder, want of tents, want of supplies, 
military jealousy, envy, and insubordi- 
nation; of the perilously short enlistments, 
constantly exchanging veterans for raw 
troops, a mischief felt all through the 
war; of the discontent of Congress that 
the enemy were not speedily driven from 
Boston; of the dignified and temperate re- 
plies of Washington, showing that he had 
maintained his post in the face of the enemy 
for six months without powder, holding the 
twenty regiments of the British cooped up 
in Boston ; of the anxiety of the whole 
country for some decisive stroke; of the 
greater anxiety of Washington, in the lonely 
night vigils in his ill-provided camp; of his 
invincible faith and courage, inspiring his 
troops with his own resolute spirit; of the 
exodus from Boston of almost all its inhabi- 
tants except the Tories, till there were left 
in the city but six thousand Americans, with 



AMERICAN REVOLUTION 27 

nearly 10,000 British troops; of the ceaseless 
activity and vigilance of Washington, en- 
forcing order and discipline in every part of 
his camp; of his consummate skill and dis- 
patch in fortifying the heights of Dorchester 
in a single night, thus rendering the town of 
Boston untenable by the enemy ; of the 
speedy result of this strategic movement, in 
the complete evacuation of the city by the 
British army; and of Washington's transfer 
of his command to New York, after expelling 
the enemy from New England. 

Read the history of America's first cam- 
paign in the fascinating pages of Bancroft, 
the idealist historian, who, if he sometimes 
mingles an optimistic philosophy with his 
facts, portrays the march of events in a 
style at once classic, full, and picturesque. 

The fixed purpose of the British govern- 
ment to conquer America soon transferred 
the theatre of war from Massachusetts soil 
to the central and southern colonies. There 
were repeated on a larger but not more de- 
voted scale, the heroic struggles which had 
marked the conflict in the old Bay State. 
Let us borrow a few felicitous words from 
the eloquent speech of Daniel Webster in 
the Senate of the United States, in 1830. 



28 MASSACHUSETTS IN THE 

''Mr. President, I shall enter on no en- 
comium upon Massachusetts — she needs 
none. There she is: — behold her, and 
judge for yourselves. There is her history: 
the world knows it by heart. The past, at 
least, is secure. There is Boston, and Con- 
cord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill — and 
there they will remain forever. The bones 
of her sons, fallen in the great struggle for 
Independence, now lie mingled with the 
soil of every State, from New England to 
Georgia; and there they will lie forever." 

And thus he paid the meed of honor to 
Massachusetts and the southern colonies: 

''Shoulder to shoulder they went through 
the revolution — hand in hand they stood 
round the administration of Washington, 
and felt his own great arm lean on them for 
support." 

Let me now recall, in the briefest manner, 
the characteristics of some of the patriots 
and writers of Massachusetts, whose intel- 
lectual force made them conspicuous leaders 
in the great contest of the American colonies 
for self-government. 

John Adams will ever stand out as one of 
the most illustrious of the men who made 



AMERICAN REVOLUTION 29 

the Revolution, and whose character gave 
it permanent success. His copious writings, 
while not free from the faults which marked 
his strong individuality — vehement, ardent, 
and hasty — were nevertheless most influen- 
tial factors in moulding the public opinion 
of his time. The leading part taken by him 
in the Continental Congress, where his elo- 
quence was *'as a flame of fire," has been 
well described by Webster, whose magnifi- 
cent paraphrase of Adams's expressions in 
favor of independence, expanded into the 
speech in defense of the immediate declara- 
tion, leaves little to be desired by the 
student of oratory. 

The lofty eloquence of Josiah Quincy, 
whose '"Observations on the Boston Port 
Bill" (published in 1774) did much to con- 
centrate the opposition of New England to 
Great Britain, was heard in 1773 in Faneuil 
Hall: 'it is not, Mr. Moderator, the spirit 
that vapors within these walls that must 
stand us in stead. The exertions of this day 
will call forth events which will make a very 
different spirit necessary for our salvation. 
Look to the end. Whoever supposes that 
shouts and hosannas will terminate the 
trials of the day entertains a childish fancy." 



30 MASSACHUSETTS IN THE 

Samuel Adams was a pillar of strength to 
the popular cause, as well by the power of 
his writings, as by the nobility of his char- 
acter. His ''Statement of the Rights of the 
Colonists" (1772), and his pamphlet, "The 
True Sentiments of America" (1768), are 
clear and forcible pleas for freedom. 

Of the earliest champions of American 
liberty, James Otis, of Massachusetts, was 
one of the foremost. Endowed with a 
powerful reason, and gifted with brilliant 
eloquence, he spoke and wrote with a mas- 
terly energy which drew forth the admira- 
tion of strong men, like John Adams, while 
his ''Rights of the British Colonies Asserted 
and Proved" (1764), was the first great 
literary effort in behalf of what afterwards 
became independence. With logic the most 
convincing, and eloquence the most fervid, 
he set forth the constitutional rights of the 
people of all the colonies to self-government. 

General Joseph Warren, whose early death 
at Bunker Hill filled Massachusetts with 
mourning, was of the true race of patriots. 
High-minded, chivalrous, modest, and brave, 
his stirring eloquence added a charm to his 
personality which drew to him the admira- 
tion of the people. He early prophesied 



AMERICAN REVOLUTION }l 

that the connection with the mother country 
must sooner or later end, and he was 
singled out by British hatred as 'Meader of 
the rebellion." He wrote to Josiah Quincy, 
in 1774, ''Great Britain may depopulate 
North America; she never can conquer the 
inhabitants." Volunteering as a private in 
the ranks, his lofty spirit went instantly 
from the scenes of earth, amid the roar of 
the cannon at Bunker Hill, repeating almost 
with his last breath the words of the 
Roman poet — 'it is sweet and honorable 
to die for one's country." 

Joseph Hawley, of Northampton, was one 
of the earliest, ablest, and most determined 
champions of the rights of the American 
colonies. In the assembly of Massachu- 
setts, in 1766, Hawley declared, "the Parlia- 
ment of Great Britain has no right to 
legislate for us." This was the first denial 
in a colonial legislature of the power of 
Parliament. And in August, 1774, Hawley 
wrote to John Adams— "After all, we must 
fight!" This ante-dated Patrick Henry's 
famous utterance of the same words in the 
Virginia Convention of March, 1775, by six 
months. Mr. Adams relates that he read 
Hawley's letter to Patrick Henry in Con- 



32 MASSACHUSETTS IN THE 

gress: Henry listened with great attention, 
till the climax was reached, "we must fight," 
and then he broke out — ''By God, I am of 
that man's mind!" ''I considered/' adds 
Mr. Adams, "that this was a sacred oath, 
upon a very great occasion." No thought 
of profanity entered into it. I refer to this 
incident here not so much to hint priority 
of the utterance of the Massachusetts patriot 
over the patriot of Virginia; Henry's lofty 
soul had no need of the inspiration of other 
men; but 1 cite it to show how heart leaped 
to hearty when the supreme hour approached, 
and the sword of the sons of liberty was 
thrown in the balance, against the last argu- 
ment of Kings. 

1 should fail in discharging the duty of the 
occasion, were I to omit mention of the part 
borne by the noble and patriotic women of 
Massachusetts during the Revolutionary 
struggle. Only the briefest notice can here 
be made, as time is wanting for any detail. 

Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams, was 
of the Ouincy stock, and was a close student 
from early childhood. Married in 1764, the 
outbreak of war brought to her home many 
fears and privations, for her husband was a 
proscribed man. Her keen sympathies were 



AMERICAN REVOLUTION 33 

continually drawn upon. When Adams 
went to the Congress at Philadelphia, the 
copious and intimate correspondence which 
passed between the husband and wife forms 
one of the most interesting and instructive 
chapters in the history of the times. 

Mrs. Adams's sister, Mrs. Peabody, was a 
devoted patriot, who thus wrote to John 
Adams during the height of the revolu- 
tionary struggle: ''Lost to virtue, lost to 
humanity must that person be, who can 
view without emotion the complicated dis- 
tress of this injured land. Oh! my brother, 
oppression is enough to make wise people 
mad." 

Mrs. Lucia Knox, wife of a Massachusetts 
Major General, who afterwards became 
Washington's first Secretary of War, was of 
an aristocratic lineage. She left her parents, 
who were Loyalists, and who wished her 
to marry a British officer, to wed the 
Boston bookseller, whose fine person and 
quick intelligence had captivated her, and 
who soon after became General Knox. 
She had a strong and well cultivated mind, 
joined to much beauty, fascinating manners, 
and a sanguine, cheerful temperament. 
Gen. Knox, it is said, often deferred to his 



34 MASSACHUSETTS IN THE 

wife's judgment, regarding her as a superior 
being; and even Washington was impressed 
by her character and manners. She was 
one of the few officers' wives who followed 
the army in frequent camp visits. On the 
British occupation of Boston, Mrs. Knox 
escaped with her husband, and joined the 
American army at Cambridge, having Gen. 
Knox's sword concealed by quilting it in- 
side the lining of her cloak. That, surely, 
was a wife well worth having, to a soldier 
and a patriot. The point of this incident 
becomes obvious, when we recall the fact 
that arms were most scarce and precious in 
that year of grace, 1775. 

Mrs. Dorothy Hancock, whose husband's 
immortal name is writ large at the head of 
the signers of the Declaration of Independ- 
ence, was the daughter of Edmund Quincy, 
and a lady of taste, elegance and fashion. 
She shared the many honors, as well as the 
trials of her proscribed husband, and was a 
fugitive from Concord when the fight of the 
embattled farmers was going on — 

"Who fired the shot heard round the world." 

Hancock was himself that day a hunted 
fugitive. 
Mrs. Mercy Warren, in whose honorable 



AMERICAN REVOLUTION 35 

and cherished name Massachusetts takes 
just pride, was the sister of James Otis, the 
illustrious patriot of Boston. Her early ad- 
diction to study gave her a phenomenal fame 
in the province as a scholar. Her copious 
writings are full of classical allusions, con- 
tributing much to the quality of their learn- 
ing, while not always adding to their attrac- 
tiveness. She was a most ardent patriot 
through all the Revolutionary struggle, and 
among her correspondents were Jefferson, 
both the Adamses Qohn and Samuel), 
Elbridge Gerry, John Dickinson and Gen. 
Knox. Her sympathies were keen, and she 
sheltered and aided many of the sons of 
liberty at her house. Her "History of the 
American Revolution," published in 1805, 
in three volumes, is her chief literary work. 
But my discourse must end, with a word 
of grateful recognition of the useful labors 
of your association, in recalling the minds 
of the men of to-day from their easy and 
uneventful lives, to the commemoration of 
the arduous struggles, privations, and suf- 
ferings of those who wrought out the revo- 
lution. It is to them that we owe the 
assertion and the maintenance of American 
Liberty. They laid broad and deep the 



36 MASSACHUSETTS IN THE 

foundations of a government which trans- 
ferred America from the sovereignty of 
kings, to the sovereignty of the people. 
They braved every danger, endured every 
trial, sacrificed fortune, comfort, even life 
itself, teaching to posterity the sublime 
lessons of endurance and self-denial. They 
illustrated the lines of the oriental poet:— . ^^^^^• 

"Though love repine, and reason chafe, 
There came a voice without reply — 
"Tis man's perdition to be safe, 

When for the truth he ought to die." 

We are apt to boast of our advanced civili- 
zation, our intellectual enlightenment, our 
superior accomplishment in all the arts of 
life. But are there no shadows in the 
bright picture of modern progress ? Is there 
no danger in the march of luxury, and the 
worship of wealth ? If our republic is to 
outlast those of Greece and Rome, once so 
splendidly endowed with arts, refinement 
and genius, but now, alas! numbered among 
the things that were, we must avoid their 
errors. We need to cultivate less of the . 
lower aims of life, and more of that spirit of 
high resolve, of devotion to duty, that iron 
in the blood, which made our forefathers 
what they were. If it were given to us to 



AMERICAN REVOLUTION 37 

open the seals of the undiscovered country, 
if we could now hear the voices of Otis, 
and Adams, and Warren, and Quincy, and 
Washington, and Jefferson, and Henry, 
what would be the counsel of those illustri- 
ous Americans of the past, to us Americans 
of to-day ? Would they not admonish us — 
"Be true to your great inheritance; have 
faith in your country; build your institutions 
on the firm foundation of public justice and 
private virtue : Stand up to the stature of 
God's image that is in you: then shall 
your republic succeed; then shall you stand, 
a fulfillment of the prophecy of all noble 
hearts, — a revelation to the ages of the 
greatness and the brotherhood of man." 




MASSACHUSETTS 



IN THE 



American Revolution 



BY 

AINSWORTH R. SPOFFORD 



AN ESSAY READ BEFORE THE 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SOCIETY OF THE SONS OF THE AMERICAN KbVOLUTION 

APRIL ID, 1895 



CITY OF WASHINGTON 
PRINTED FOR THE SOCIETY 



